Next Up For New York: Floods
Could global warming's elevation of sea levels result in a flood here in New York City? Some scientists say yes, and suggest that the city erect expensive storm surge barriers to protect low-lying areas. Others worry about the cost and caution restraint until the potential danger is more evident. But we may be facing the threat even now-particularly with this goddamn rain.
Indeed, some civil engineers argue the city already risks catastrophic storm flooding. "A storm surge is not really a global warming issue" for New York, says senior engineer Dennis Padron at Halcrow Inc., which helped design a 15-mile-long storm barrier in St. Petersburg. "It could happen tomorrow."Under certain conditions, a hurricane now could generate a 30-foot-high storm surge and flood 100 square miles of New York. If ice melts and sea level rises, that risk increases. "If you have 20 inches of sea level rise, the edges of lower Manhattan would flood 20 times a year," says Douglas Hill, a consulting engineer at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. "It would look like Venice."
Oh, well, who doesn't love Venice? I guess we could deal.
Let's all remember it's not just water, either. It's harbor water, and stuff that's run off from Jersey.
I recommend a combination of:
1) excavating the Hamptons and trucking the soil into Manhattan to raise the ground level;
2) erecting those storm surge barriers and hoping the pumps don't fail; and
3) buying large quantities of bottled water and storing it someplace in order to lower sea levels.
Signed, a civil engineer
I'm getting a striped shirt and straw hat, but I refuse to sing.
So the guy selling the protective barriers is promising catastrophic floods. Go figure.
If I'm not mistaken, the edges of New York City should have been a foot under water years and years ago. Instead, by some miracle of nature or space-age technology, Manhattan has actually grown out into the harbor.
In other news, under the right circumstances, the Sun will peter out one day. KILLING US ALL!
oh, you need to buy a Sun? Why it just so happens…
I am a bigger global warming skeptic than all of you, but the "guy selling barriers" happens to be right. EVERYONG knew New Orleans would get hit – and they were right!
New York will get hit, it is a certainty. Right now, we are basically crossing our fingers that it happens in 1000 years and not tomorrow. In some cases, that actually makes sense (its called risk management and business case analysis). Unfortunately, not so for NY.
NY has less flood protection per/$ of potential damage than any city in the world.